Caramelo, o, Puro cuento

Format:

Book

Title:

Caramelo, o, Puro cuento

Other title(s):

Caramelo

Puro cuento

Uniform Title:

Caramelo. Spanish

Author:

Cisneros, Sandra.

ISBN:

9780375415098

9781400030996

Edition:

1. ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

467 pages ; 25 cm

Summary:

"Lala Reyes' grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl, makers. The striped caramelo rebozo is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala's possession. The novel opens with the Reyes' annual car trip-a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels-from Chicago to "the other side": Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family's stories, separating the truth from the "healthy lies" that have ricocheted from one generation to the next. We travel from the Mexico City that was the "Paris of the New World" to the music-filled streets of Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties-and, finally, to Lala's own difficult adolescence in the not-quite-promised land of San Antonio, Texas."--Baileys' Womens Prize for Fiction

Subject(s):

Mexican American families -- Fiction.

Grandparent and child -- Fiction.

Women -- Mexico -- Fiction.

Grandmothers -- Fiction.

Girls -- Fiction.

Women.

Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction.

Mexico -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction.

Mexico -- Fiction.

Chicago (Ill.) -- Novela.

Genre:

Spanish language materials.

Familias mexicano-americanas -- Novela.

Mujeres -- México -- Novela.

Materiales en español.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	SPANISH FIC CISNEROS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Cisneros, S.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	ESPAÑOL FICTION CISNEROS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	SPANISH Cisneros, S.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stayton Public Library	SP CISNEROS	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The celebrated author of The House on Mango Street delivers an extraordinary new novel, told in language of blazing originality: a multigenerational story of a Mexican-American family whose voices create a dazzling weave of humor, passion, and poignancy--the very stuff of life.

Author Notes

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 20, 1954. She received a B.A. in English from Loyola University of Chicago in 1976 and a M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Iowa in 1978. She has worked as a college recruiter, an arts administrator, a teacher to high school dropouts, and a poet. She has also visited numerous colleges around the country as a visiting writer. She has written numerous books including The House on Mango Street, Caramelo, Loose Woman, Have You Seen Marie?, and A House of My Own: Stories from My Life. She has received numerous awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Lannan Literary Award, the American Book Award, and the Thomas Wolfe Prize.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

"Uncle Fat-Face's brand-new used white Cadillac, Uncle Baby's green Impala, Father's red Chevrolet station wagon" the parade of cars that ushers in Cisneros's first novel since The House on Mango Street (1984) is headed to Mexico City from Chicago, bearing three Mexican-American families on their yearly visit to Awful Grandmother and Little Grandfather. Celaya or "Lala," the youngest child of seven and the only daughter of Inocencio and Zoila Reyes, charts the family's movements back and forth across the border and through time in this sprawling, kaleidoscopic, Spanish-laced tale. The sensitive and observant Lala feels lost in the noisy shuffle, but she inherits the family stories from her grandmother, who comes from a clan of shawl makers and throughout her life has kept her mother's unfinished striped shawl, or caramelo rebozo, containing all the heartache and joy of her family. When she, and later Lala, wear the rebozo and suck on the fringes, they are reminded of where they come from, and those who came before them. In cramped and ever-changing apartments and houses, the teenaged Lala seeks time and space for self-exploration, finally coming to an understanding of herself through the prism of her grandmother. Cisneros was also the only girl in a family of seven, and this is clearly an autobiographical work. Its testaments to cross-generational trauma and rapture grow repetitive, but Cisneros's irrepressible enthusiasm, inspired riffs on any number of subjects (tortillas, telenovelas, La-Z-Boys, Woolworth's), hilarious accounts of family gatherings and pitch-perfect bilingual dialogue make this a landmark work. (Sept. 30) Forecast: Cisneros is arguably the writer who put Mexican-American culture on the map, and the appearance of her second novel after nearly 20 years (she is also the author of two poetry collections and a short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek) will be a major literary event. A 20-city author tour and an extensive ad/promo campaign should feed the fire, and a 150,000 first printing is planned. Orale! (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Review

With this new work about a Mexican American family of shawl-makers the most beautiful of their creations being the caramelo Cisneros will undoubtedly prove once again why she received a so-called MacArthur genius award. With a 150,000-copy first printing. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.